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Emily Heaton

Agricultural landscapes face increasing pressure to provide the four F's: food, feed, fiber and fuel, while simultaneously maintaining the ecosystem functions that support life as we know it. Done prudently, dedicated biomass crops can provide feedstock for bioenergy and bioproducts while also enhancing the natural resource base.

The Biomass Crop Production and Physiology Lab, led by Dr. Emily Heaton, aims to understand the growth and productivity of dedicated biomass crops in the Midwest, and how they can be managed to provide multiple ecosystem services.

Have you been driving in rural eastern Iowa lately? You might have noticed those choppers and wagons a few weeks ago harvesting miscanthus fields, but what have you seen most recently? Planters! You might have noticed that they don’t look like the grain planters most of us are used to seeing....

Today, we will take a quick trip around the world to explore how other cultures have used miscanthus. East Asian cultures incorporated miscanthus into their everyday lives: paintings, toys, household items, rituals, and in some cases medicinal uses.

Welcome to ISU Biomass, led by the Heaton Lab at Iowa State University. Together with our partners, we work to integrate perennial crops into the annual crop landscape to improve economic, environmental, and social outcomes. One of our focus areas is the production and ecophysiology of giant...